


Purple

by spindleofwords



Series: It Takes Them Four Years and Maybe Nearly Dying [6]
Category: Static Shock
Genre: Angst, I'm sorry to give you angst after a year folks, M/M, but I promise it's not all bad, someone messes up big time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 00:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2901848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spindleofwords/pseuds/spindleofwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If someone could just learn to talk about his feelings...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Short Fuse

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Sorry to be gone for so long! I had a plot chart written out for this and my computer went kaput, so I was trying to salvage what I could of the chart off of whatever I could. Unfortunately, I couldn’t save any of it, and consequently I’ve been trying to decide if I wanted to continue without it or leave it the way it was. However, I got a comment of someone asking for an update and I figured I’d give it a go, so, here darlings!
> 
> A lot of thanks to RikuIsKing for nudging me with their comment asking for more of this!

SUMMER BEFORE JUNIOR YEAR

It is a long two months that involves way too many damn clothes, that's the only way V can think to describe it.

Summer was hot and sticky as always but it was also dangerous, a cloying kind of humid that reeked of the threats to Virgil and Richie's city. 

Mr. Hawkins was suddenly watching his boy very closely, closer than even Sharon watched her brother; the boy came home at all hours of the night, dragging a usually equally exhausted Richie. 

Sometimes, they dragged each other in. Other times, Virgil was propping up Richie with his shoulders and soft words, and sometimes Richie led Virgil with sure hands and soothing tones. On one memorable occasion, his boy came through the door bridal-carrying the blonde, crying softly, but that had only happened once. 

Something was going on, Mr. Hawkins could tell, but when he asked about it over breakfast one morning Virgil had not panicked at being caught, and did not protest. 

At the time, Virgil had set his fork down and made eye contact. "Pops, I'm trying to set some stuff right that I messed up. That's all."

"And that comes at the expense of bruises and late night escapades, son?"

The teen'd held his father's gaze firmly. "Yes sir. It does."

The older man frowned, taking off his glasses and folding them. "I don't like it, Virgil. I don't want—"

V shrugged, interrupting his father quietly. "Sometimes, I don't want to either. But I've gotta, Pops. I've got to."

“Virgil. None of this is illegal, is it? I won’t have you caught in some other person’s convoluted interests, no matter what you think you need to do.”

If possible, Virgil’s jaw clenched further. “No, sir. None of what I’m doing is illegal. But please don’t ask me anymore.”

Mr. Hawkins held his son's gaze and felt his heart shudder at the serious look in his baby's dark eyes, much too grown for a teenager. He had only been able to nod, and then proceeded to wait up every night until Virgil returned home.

As for what Virgil did when he wasn't home? Nothing he shared with his dad, but not too much, either. It was a short list, not hard at all. He practiced with electricity, he prepared for baddies. He beat baddies, he changed costumes again. He outran cameras and fought more baddies with Richie.  
And he also did not have one real conversation with his best friend.

Waking up on the living room couch with Richie draped over his calves had shaken V so badly the teen was calling earthquake. The feel of Richie's hands on him? Strong fingers pressing into his muscle, cleverly talking Virgil down...to his shame, Virgil recalled the feeling clearly, jacked off to the imaginary touches of those clever fingers finding his weak spots and touching him all over. He woke up in bed sweating frequently, too old to have wet dreams but still feeling phantom Richie's hands drawing slowly down his chest. There was only so much a teen boy could take.

In private, between Bang baby fights, Virgil agonized over it, first over his sexuality and then over Richie himself and their relationship. It took a solid week of forcing himself to watch gay porn and talking himself out of denial for V to admit to himself that he liked the lines of Rich's body and kind of wanted to trace him with his tongue. He balked instinctively at other males, though, until he stopped trying to compare himself, and stopped thinking about what it meant, and allowed himself to revel in how good it looked and maybe how good it might feel. 

That acceptance didn't come until another month of watching gay porn and reading a few books.

Agony over Richie was not abated so soon. The current state of their relationship was shambling, limited to orders in Bang baby fights and an almost easy quiet when they were alone. Virgil knew that they would have to find their way back to being on a personal level again; he could still trust Rich with his life, but damned if he could hold a conversation that was small talk with the blonde, let alone approach all of the things they needed to tackle.

Richie was so good, too good for Virgil, he knew; the teen kept starting conversations about “that night,” and asking surreptitious questions about their school year apart, and Virgil deflected half the time without thinking about it and hated himself for it every time. They didn’t discuss Virgil’s eyes on Richie, they didn’t talk about not going to the pool together anymore, they didn’t even talk about Daisy or Frieda, and that was all on V’s plate. Virgil was the one who kept bouncing questions back or letting the conversation fizzle out, because he had no idea what to say or how to say it. Richie, bless him, kept trying anyways. 

The big turnaround for them both was the gas station.


	2. A Rupture

Finding a place to make their own was ridiculously freeing, a place to clean and patch up without going back to the Hawkins household. The space seemed big enough at first, too, but Virgil soon learned that it wasn't, not really. Every place in the station gave him a vantage of Richie; of his blonde bangs flopping into his eyes, or his shy smile as he made eye contact, or his seductive cooing at the machines and wires on almost every available counter space. There wasn't much to do about it except watch Richie, and Virgil vacillated between that and trying to unstick his mouth and speak.

To be fair, it was hard to do. Richie had developed a habit of spending the hot, sweaty days in nothing but his shorts and his engineering gloves, thick things that hid Richie’s pretty hands. Probably for the better, because they sure didn’t help Virgil’s concentration any. Not that the expanse of Richie’s bare chest as he tinkered with endless machinations helped V’s concentration either. He ended up divvying it between his electrical musings and spending too much time eyeing the small muscle ripples of Richie’s back and torso as his friend hammered things into place. 

“V? V, man, are you okay?”

Virgil startled, realizing he had been caught staring at Richie once again. Leaning back into the couch cushions, Virgil blew out a long breath, eyes averting. “Uh. Yeah, Richie, yeah. I’m all good.”

“You sure? Man, you’re,” and Richie smirked, here, a smile that was just a little too animal to be anything but smug, good god he knew-- “you’re all bent out of shape. You even look a little red.”

The heat of the day was seeping into his skin and Richie’s look wasn’t aiding him in the slightest. The air was swampy with water and muggy with stuff he should be saying, stifling with the want that Virgil could feel clawing out of his chest. Trying to catch his breath, V made a decision; if Richie was going to push, he wasn’t going to back down. Licking his chapped lips, the teen sat up and leaned forward, eyes bright. “Man, I’m fine. You wanna come over and take my temperature or somethin’?”

His entire body was an invitation, something the two of them hadn’t given each other in months, a promised easiness that they were on the hunt for. Virgil couldn’t help laugh when Richie carefully set down his project, peeled off his gloves, and then body slammed him into the couch.

An elbow in someone’s diaphragm, hands bruising shoulders. They were close enough to breathe each other’s air, skin sweaty against each other as Richie pinned Virgil down by the arms only to get half thrown off when Virgil sat up and reached for the blonde in some kind of headlock. In the background, some of the alternative music Rich favored was playing from his radio, but the sound of it was lost in the vacuum of the two teenagers. Blows, as they were traded, got hard, thwacking against their open skin as Rich threw a punch and Virgil smacked his hands against Rich’s chest. Dust motes flew up around them as both landed heavily on the carpet, still rolling and slipping around each other. Virgil arched in a bright flash of pain as Richie’s elbow struck his lower back, and he growled, flipping Richie over his shoulder. Richie only laughed, panting, hands pinching haphazardly.

“You feel a little soft, V, all that lounging around isn’t helping you, huh?”

“This all you got, Foley? All that tinkering ain’t doing you much good, my man...ouch!”

His grin was blinding as Richie pinned him, shoving his chest down into the rough fiber of their carpet. Wiggling, Virgil slid free and turned face up with a grunt only for Richie to sit on his abdomen, pinning his arms under the paler’s knees. 

“Insult my machines one more time, Hawkins…”

Richie leant forward and Virgil felt his pulse speed, eyes slipping half mast as he pressed up into the weight of the blonde. “Mhm. What’re you going to do?”

A growl came from above him and Virgil licked his lips, twisting under the blonde’s weight. Richie slammed his palms into the rug near Virgil’s head, glasses slipping down his nose as he leant closer with a drawl and a grin. “V, don’t push me man. Those machines are good to me.”

The implied statement underneath gave Virgil pause, and he tilted his head to the side, nose brushing along Richie’s. “Good to you how? I bet not the way you want ‘em to be.” 

That grin fell, giving way to a worried bite of his lower lip. The blonde had way too many signals for Virgil to read him. Rich was awed, he was angry, he was despairing, he was... Virgil could see Richie wrinkle his nose, eyes frustrated, and Virgil caught that troubled gaze with his own, voice low and smooth. Leaned up even further into his friend's space. "Rich, man. Hey. Hey, c'mere."

And Richie's eyes were wide, he was shocked and pink and breathless and he leant down and fit his mouth to Virgil's. V made a soft noise and kissed him back desperately, almost frantically until Richie fit his hands behind his head and slowed him down. Kind of kiss that made Virgil positive a girl was getting wet, one that was soft and sweet and close. Feeling Richie shimmy down off his arms to line their bodies together was breathtaking, made Virgil break away and rest his forehead against Richie's just to fill his lungs. He wrapped his arms around Richie's neck and held on as his world flew apart.

He didn't have any kind of chance, with the way Richie grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. Virgil grabbed at Richie's arms and groaned as the blonde sucked a few kisses into his neck. 

"Richie, I—"

Bit off his own sentence with a sharp moan, the kind of "unh" that he got from a chick when he hit the right spot, but then again, Richie was doing sinful things with his mouth against Virgil's skin. The blonde teen bit at V's neck again, sucked and worried at the place under the darker's jaw that had caused the noise, and Virgil made it again, hopelessly lost and panicking. 

It all felt too good; Rich had caught him up in a kiss again, a million kisses, was kissing him over and over and slipping his tongue in Virgil's mouth to run his tongue over V’s and fuck gently into his mouth with it. Was kissing him breathless, left V scrabbling at the broad back of Rich for a handhold as Richie took him apart like he had blueprints on how Virgil was glued together.

Their cocks slotted together as Virgil pushed up mindlessly and the sound Richie made was terrifingly appealing. Virgil choked on his own intake of air.

"I— I— I don't think I can do this!"

Richie pulled back, startled.

"You what?"

His voice was breathless, too, wheezing in and out of his lungs as Richie came up to rest on his elbows. Virgil couldn't hold his gaze for more than a second.

"I don't know if I..."

With a low growl, Richie pushed himself off of Virgil and stalked over to the table, pushing the chair out of the way with such force it hit the ground, clattering against the wall. Virgil sat up on his elbows as well, still laid out and panting hard. The pale teen finished throwing his stuff in his bag and reached for his shirt angrily, kicking another chair out of his way as he put it on. "Jesus, Virgil, decide what kind of signals you're giving me! I...this isn’t…” 

Virgil watched the blonde blow out an angry breath and run a hand through his hair in agitation before Richie was stomping back over, poking V in the chest.

“I didn’t wait for this. I never thought I’d get to have even this, not even a kiss, not even these kinds of fucking looks from you, V, I thought you were _straight._ I wasn't even gonna fucking touch this about you, okay, I have had a fucking crush on you since maybe eighth grade and I was just going to live with it for the rest of my damn life and then you…”

Hands shaking, Richie backed up and spun around, bracing his hands on the counter, head bowed. “Make a decision, V. I’ve danced around this for years, and we didn’t talk for an entire ten months of school, and it,” his voice broke but Virgil watched him stand unmoving, “it was the worst shit I’ve ever lived through, and we haven’t talked about it. We haven’t talked about any of this except for our fucking powers. Virgil, man,” and the dreadlocked teen saw Richie swipe at his eyes, heard him sniffle, “that’s so fucked up. We’re so fucked up, right now.”

His knuckles turned white from his grip on the table before Richie pushed off and stalked to the door. Virgil stood in a scramble, not sure what he was going to say but wanting to apologize, to ask questions, something, and he stopped in his tracks as Rich turned and looked at him with hard eyes.

“You wanna talk, I’m there. But you make first move, Hawkins. I’m not doing this shit anymore.”

The door didn’t slam shut in the deserted gas station but it sounded loud closing all the same. Virgil took a shaky breath, took a couple more. His hands were shaking, even, his whole body trembling, and he grabbed his stuff, tear-blind. The teen biked home with red eyes, pushing himself until his legs hurt and he was a shaking mess.


	3. Mend is a Relative Term

Sharon was cooking in the kitchen when he got home, the kitchen smelling almost normal for once. She sneered at her brother coming through the door when the screen banged shut. “Virgil, you know Daddy says to close that door behind you. I don’t know what home you think you’re walking into.” 

Virgil only grunted at his sister, clomping up the stairs two at a time. “Shut up, Sharon. Leave me the fuck alone.”

The woman gasped, coming out of the kitchen to smack Virgil with the spatula, but by the time she got there his door was slamming shut upstairs. As he sat on his bed, bookbag thrown near the door, Virgil pressed careful fingers up into the bruise under his jaw and fell asleep feeling it twinge, trying not to cry.

Nobody heard much from Virgil for the rest of summer. One month left of the sun and free time, and the teen didn’t come out of his room except to fly down the stairs and out the door, slinging his bookbag over one shoulder and his room locked tight. Richie looked vaguely surprised to see him at the first Bang baby fight after their own fight, but they fought together better than Virgil expected. He almost approached Richie after that fight but he couldn’t even bring himself to make eye contact.

Eventually, they were sharing home base again, silence cemented between them and bricked up in their empty spaces. Virgil kept bringing in new costumes to try on, made new ones almost every week, sometimes twice a week in a fitful sort of admiration. The seams of the fabric were the closest thing to touching Richie he had at the time. Richie denied each and every single one of them, of his own and of the ones Virgil tried on too. 

The silent wall felt insurmountable to V; he had no idea how to make a dent, let alone knock it down enough to get Richie to listen to him. He didn’t even deserve Richie to listen to him, he had lain awake at night and listed all of the reasons he never deserved Richie to talk to him again, and yet. Richie was still there, at the gas station every time they defeated Ebon. He was still there, handing Virgil improved gadgets to keep him safe, to remind him to fill up on juice, to juice up his weapons. He was there dragging him out of firefights, Richie was still there and still the only one giving.

And Virgil hated it. He was prone to arguments with anyone in that month, started more than a few with Richie over small things, over battle positions and costume designs. Sharon received a lot of the payload, her mouth a sharp instrument as her and V battled it out over dinner. Over breakfast. Over the stairs. Wherever. 

 

Once, even, Virgil had made the mistake of snapping at his father. Mr. Hawkins had waited until Virgil was done spewing words to suggest coolly, “I think you really need to talk with Richard. I’m worried about you.”

 

Virgil hated that his bed felt cold without Richie spending the night next to him. He turned in the cold space all night long, and woke up facing Richie’s pillow for an entire month. 

But a month didn’t last very long, only four or five weeks, and it was about enough time for Virgil to get sick of himself. He was slinking around, and he couldn't look his Pops in the face. Virgil worked out in the gym when he couldn't stand to be home, and he avoided looking into the mirror to check his form. He hadn't looked himself in the eyes for about a month, either, could only see his mom's eyes staring back at him. His mother would've been ashamed of him. He hadn't even really tried talking to Richie, and not knowing what to say didn't count as an excuse, he'd had an entire month to think of something, dammit, he was just being cowardly. When Richie and him had a fight about the color of the damn fabric, Virgil took a good look at himself and decided they couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t ask that of Richie any longer. And so a week into the new semester of school, Virgil ventured into the abandoned gas station, knocking on the door with a halfhearted smile.

“Hey, Foley.”

Richie looked up warily from what he was working on, eyebrows raised. “Can I help you, man?”

Virgil shrugged, ducking his head. The feeling of Richie’s eyes… “Come over to my house after school tomorrow? I got some costume designs you might not hate. Up to you.”

It was nonchalant, but Richard hadn’t set foot in Virgil’s house for a month, and he ducked his head as well, hands absently screwing in a part as his heart hammered. “Yeah? I’ll guess I’ll see if they’re any good this time.”

V nodded, swallowing hard. “Good, good. See you around, then.” He hurried back to where he’d left his surfer outside the station, jumping on and surfing away before he could allow the dam of his mouth to break. He had a plan, and he wasn’t going to ruin it by spewing words unnecessarily; the chance of an argument was too high. 

At home, Virgil eyed his purple and yellow suit, straightening the collar as it hung on the closet door. He was a little fond of this design, and he hoped that Richie might be, too.


End file.
